Very nostalgic game from my childhood. Very foreward thinking with RPG elements, factions, open world, missions and side missions, different task outcomes. Like stalker, it´s a hybrid genre and sort of a one of its kind. Has all the bugs you would think it has and all the jank as well including some of the goofiest looking NPC´s of all time as well.
Nontheless I played the living hell out of it. I always viewed it as a weird crossbreed between a first person GTA and Far Cry 2 with a sprinkle stalker. A weird first draft of design philosophies we came to see in later games. It´s actually not possible to make a review with the character length limitations on GOG, so I advise you to buy it, give it a try and see for yourself. Watch some gameplay on youtube. You will see what I mean.
This game is a truly open world game where you can go where you want and do what you want. You can align with whatever faction you want or just drive around and do nothing. You play the game how you want and have fun doing what you like.
However the game is very janky and buggy. The audio will randomly cut off during dialog, You will get stuck on tiny obstacles you should be able to simply step over. When you walk in certain directions or on certain surfaces the screen jerks around. Also there is no run button and the areas are unnecessarily large and empty. These things aren't game breaking but they add up and become annoying.
The worst is the insane difficulty curve the game throws at you. You have to level up your skills in this game and after the first few missions they immediately ask you to take down a drug house with like fifteen guys with assault rifles while you're still level 2 or 3 and your weapon keeps misfiring because your skill is too low. Expect to do lots of grinding and/or cheesing.
O.K. where should I start?
This game is a true open world RP Action game which allows you to do anything you want.
Unlike other open world games this one is not using the famous formula of creating 3 - 5 types of activities, multiply them 300 times and spread all over the map. So if you want to finish the game 100%, you are ending up doing the same things over and over again until you're bored out of your mind.
The developers of this game were very creative and manged to create a lot of complitely different side missions, so the game just holds you without a problem. It is so good that you really can't stop playing it.
There is a different factions in this game and each faction have their very interesting side missions. So game keeps offer something interesting until the very end.
Now about some technical advices and problems.
When the game starts the sounds an the graphics is set to minimum. So to get sound working, you need to enter the sound options, adjust the sounds sliders and press the "Save" button. Because the adjustments are not working on the fly but only after you press the "Save" button.
The same is for graphics. Enter "Video" menu, adjust resolution and look for "Graphics" and "Effects" on the left menu. You need to enter the both and set everyting on maxmum.
About the graphics.
The graphical engine is old and it cannot offer a fancy "Far cry - like" graphics. But it really doesn't matter, because the game is so good and fun that a slightly crooked graphics doesn't makes any bad.
About the game bugs.
There is a lot of bugs in both GOG and Steam versions. Some of them makes side missions progress imposible. The main story line however can be finished without a problem. But I strongly recommend checking the GOG and Steam forums for the solution. Because the game can be fixed in a 5 minutes.
Don't start the game without fixing it, if you want have maximum fun!
This game is amazing and it deserves even 10 stars, to bad its not using CryEngine.
Good game overall with some fairly inane frustrations here and there. Buggy, unfair enemy placement, and some under baked ideas is how'd I describe the major cons here. Honestly, almost gave it 3 stars for the final area of the game with it's difficulty spike.
On what's good about it, it's an ambitious open world title with tons of fun to be had. Whether you're crawling in the mud during the night and picking off some soldiers to recover literature for the rebels, or blowing up a military convoy from the comfort of a mafia helicopter, you'll almost never be bored.
Woooow now this is a blast from the past! I picked this up at original launch and it was the buggiest game I have ever played. Granted I'm in that like maybe 1% who didn't experience bugs with Cyberpunk 2077 at launch, but still it was a very, very buggy launch.
That said, the game is better with patches and it does have a lot of features and there's quite a bit of things to do. There was a lot about this game that amazed me at the time and you just gotta love the setting!
Grab it on sale, it's probably still buggy and janky, but it is one of the more interesting games of its era.
